I had a good chuckle with the lady at the cashier the other day when I confessed I spent the better part of five minutes searching for non-organic mushrooms until I finally was bold enough to ask the produce guy if such a thing existed, and he replied: “No, they’re all organic.”
When I thought about how little mushrooms grow up to become adult mushrooms, yeah, that’s about as organic as one can get so it makes sense.
But as a shopper, these champignons were in the middle of the organic section of the supermarket, not an area I normally find myself, and if I do for some reason I’m usually grossed out by the high prices.
So why would I want organic mushrooms when I can get ordinary mushrooms for much cheaper for goodness sake?
Of course, my cynical self was wondering if mushrooms were generally higher priced now that they’re officially organic, instead of when they were just organic by design, without the politically correct label.
It’s like products adopting gluten-free and GMO-free labels when they never contained gluten or GMO in the first place.
Gee, there’s no gluten in my ketchup, that’s awesome. How did they do that? Then they charge more, for nothing.
And speaking of politically correct, I suddenly had my choice of white or dark mushrooms. Not knowing the difference I figured I’d buy the cheaper ones.
Same price? Dammit. I leaned towards the white ones but is that just a ramification of my white privilege and inherent racism?
Maybe I’m taking this too far but I was glad I could load up a brown paper bag, not white, and only the cashier and I would know my dark secret.
Now I’ve always been a bit of a nervous shopper at the best of times.
I remember turning condom boxes upside down on the conveyor belt once upon a time, and if I was actually buying feminine hygiene products for my wife (maybe once) I would pile several other items on top of them, hoping nobody noticed I was doing what I was actually doing.
But now it seems like everything at the supermarket is political and the content of your buggy is fair game for debate and discussion, if not derision.
From which store you shop at, to what brand you purchase, to how they grow your produce, to where they grow your produce, to what’s fed to the animals that are slaughtered for your steak, to what you take your groceries home in, to what vehicle is parked in the lot outside, it all counts on the political scale.
On the day of the mushroom incident, I also bought steaks as we were hosting another couple for a barbecue.
Now a piece of dead cow isn’t, once again, the most politically correct as the green crowd claims cows fart too much and cause a methane problem for Mother Earth (I’m not sure how human farting fits into the equation — sure, blame it on the lowly cow).
Hey, if all you ate was grass all day maybe you’d have digestive issues as well? I like to point to our teeth as proof we’re meant to be carnivores and few things in life beat a barbecued steak.
And believe me it’s not an everyday event, but the fact I have to justify it is proving my political point quite nicely.
And a jug of milk, 1%. Again from a cow, although at least she didn’t have to give up her life for my dinner.
However, I’m probably supposed to be drinking skim at my age but it’s a hard habit to break and I still think it’s good for you, dammit.
And a bag of cheezies. They were on sale and near the checkout buggers, and my wife likes them, even though she tells me not to buy them.
Okay, maybe they don’t have a lot of nutritional value but did you know that a 50-gram serving (not sure how many cheezies that is, to be honest) contains 1% daily value of potassium and calcium (good) but 20 per cent of sodium (not so good)?
Two packages of barbecued ribs. They were two-for-one, and with rice and a vegetable, maybe a salad too, it’s is an economical and decent, fairly easy meal.
So there. I’m not sure how pigs play into the end-of-the-world scenario, other than they’re likely in charge when it happens.
A cake for dessert for the company, ahem, and that’s it.
Although I left my cloth bags in the car. Boo, hiss, big frown. Do you hate the world, or what?
Hey, at least I didn’t buy a package of plastic straws, or coffee pods that you can’t recycle, or anything else that is contributing to the looming apocalypse.
Did I mention I bought organic mushrooms?
Glenn Mitchell is the former editor of The Morning Star.